Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/72

56 financial agents at present in Mexico being sent out into the seaports and principal towns of the interior, I made my arrangements immediately, and have transmitted my directions and circulars, and have dismissed the agents to their respective destinations.

I acquainted M. the under secretary of state that the French officials had left. I sent him a copy of the instructions given to them, and to the chief commandants, who were called on to assist them in their mission, and I also insisted that M. the under secretary of state should send instructions of a similar character to mine to the directors of the public haciendas in the several departments of the empire.

His reply to me was that this question was still under consideration, and that no resolution on it had yet been come to!

I fear that the French financial agents will find themselves in a false position, and that, for want of some arrangement, and not being provided with commissions in due form, they will be unable to accomplish the duties of supervision and control which they have been called upon to fulfil.

I have the honour of submitting these observations to your majesty's consideration, and to point out to you this delay, which will certainly be prejudicial to the financial interests of the country.

Thus were the wisest measures paralysed by the inertness of the royal advisers. Whilst the emperor's orders, so feebly administered, were quietly lying in the portfolios, valuable time was being wasted. The depredations at the custom-houses were not repressed, and the taxes did not find their way into the public treasury. Maximilian would have had better success if he had personally superintended the execution of his orders. Could he not have presented himself at those more important points, where difficulties were every day being revealed to him by our military reports? The presence of a sovereign is always eloquent, and warms the feelings of the masses. Was it not by this system that Alexander conquered Asia in three years, and